Sorry for the Ham radio 'off topic'... I meant for that to go to Derek and not the forum... my sincerest apologies...
Tony, perhaps you have never had to support a customer or employer that has been in business for more than 30 years... This company I work for has been using protel a long time. Upgrading is expensive, and disruptive to the work going on here, especially when Altium breaks things in the program that used to be dependable features.... so we try to keep it to a minimum... upgrading only when necessary. We currently have the 2004 package for 2 seats... but most of our data is in the older Protel and ProCad formats. We have many users here still operating the Protel 99SE product as we are probably among one of the largest single customers in the US for Protel cad tools. Editing files to view them is more cost, time and effort that should not be needed in order to support the manufacturing floor. A truly useful viewer would allow folks to read all of the versions of the program... (and maybe a few of the competitors files as well). But I would settle for it to be able to read 99SE files at a bare minimum... Altium needs to support their customers or loose them. The more they do to service their loyal (but vocal) customer base, the more secure their business will be. Not all of their customers are doing embedded systems development... many of their customers are PCB designers and folks who need to work with PCB's.... Thanks for your insight. I hope they consider adding the functionality to the viewer to read older files. They will see much more adoption of the program in the market if they do. And it would help us. Bill Brooks - KG6VVP PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 Datron World Communications, Inc. _______________________________________ San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council Communications Officer, Web Manager http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/ http://pcbwizards.com -----Original Message----- From: Tony Karavidas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2005 12:08 PM To: 'Protel EDA Discussion List' Subject: RE: [PEDA] RE: Altium Designer Viewer - Licensing and/or AltiumDesigner 200 4 The off topic police must have been eating donuts when this one slipped by. Well, to bring it back on topic, it's funny you say that you have hundreds of older Protel files and you still need a solution for viewing these files by your manufacturing people. What have you been doing up until now? Altium can't exist on making more functionality on old, obsolete products. The do import most all of their old formats because we demand it and they still export to one or more older versions. I think Altium wants you to upgrade to AD/DXP to get the viewer functionality (among other new features). 73, Tony -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brooks,Bill Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 2:24 PM To: 'Derek Jackson' Cc: '[email protected]' Subject: [PEDA] RE: Altium Designer Viewer - Licensing and/or AltiumDesigner 200 4 I picked up a multi-band radio from ICOM and have used it for the last year... It hits the local repeaters and also gets reception in the AM broadcast stations and Aircraft bands... it's a hand held portable, The IC-T90A 5 watts in high power mode... doubles as a scanner too. Pretty useful for staying in touch while traveling... My truck has a Datron radio in it that I sue for VHF repeater communications too. I plan to take the General license this October.. I have the Tech license right now. http://www.icomamerica.com/amateur/dualhand.asp <http://www.icomamerica.com/amateur/dualhand.asp> http://www.hamradio.com/ <http://www.hamradio.com/> Bill Brooks - KG6VVP PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 Datron World Communications, Inc. _______________________________________ San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council Communications Officer, Web Manager <http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/> http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/ <http://pcbwizards.com> http://pcbwizards.com -----Original Message----- From: Derek Jackson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 9:54 AM To: 'Brooks,Bill' Cc: [email protected] Subject: RE: Altium Designer Viewer - Licensing and/or Altium Designer 2004 Dear Bill, I will pursue the viewer issue. I will keep you posted on how things progress. Thank you for the additional information on IPC and web site. Unfortunately, I invested in a 3MHz-30MHz radio, and the Technician license will only grant access to the higher band widths which means I will have to invest in another radio, perhaps a 2 meter or dual band. Sincerely, Derek Jackson Technical Consultant _____ Altium - Making Electronics Design Easier San Diego Sales & Support -----Original Message----- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 9:01 AM To: 'Derek Jackson' Cc: '[email protected]' Subject: RE: Altium Designer Viewer - Licensing and/or Altium Designer 2004 Hi Derek, That's a disappointing turn of events... Please pass along my request for an improvement to the Protel viewer to support the older versions of the program. We have many hundreds of older files and I don't want to have to spend unnecessary labor on them to convert them to something that the manufacturing folks can view... it should be viewable without changing the files. We have a local IPC Designers Council chapter meeting coming up on the 20th over at Kyocera Wireless in San Diego... There is some info about the event on the website events page... http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/200507sean.htm <http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/200507sean.htm> I got my Ham ticket last October... there are some great resources for study available online Rod's website is a plethora of information and help... http://www.ac6v.com/ <http://www.ac6v.com/> Let me know if there is anything I can help with... Best regards, Bill Brooks - KG6VVP PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 Datron World Communications, Inc. _______________________________________ San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council Communications Officer, Web Manager <http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/> http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/ <http://pcbwizards.com> http://pcbwizards.com -----Original Message----- From: Derek Jackson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 7:54 AM To: 'Brooks,Bill' Cc: 'Craft,Jim' Subject: RE: Altium Designer Viewer - Licensing and/or Altium Designer 2004 Dear Bill and Jim, Thank you for contacting Altium Support. Unfortunately, the developers decided not to include the translation capability in the Altium Designer Viewer. Do you still have your older Protel 99SE software? I see a number of Protel 99SE licenses that are registered to your company. You should be able to view the files and/or output them to DXF so that they can be viewed by a DXF viewer such as AutoCAD. In addition, I noticed that you have an Altium Protel 2004 license. With Service Pack 3 of Altium Designer, there is a Smart PDF output that allows you to output your design in a PDF format with links to nets and components. If you have access to Altium Designer, you could open your 99SE files and select 'File >> Smart PDF'. This way, you will have a viewable PDF file that is readable by a PDF reader, such as Adobe Acrobat. In addition, you could save the imported file to the 2004 version which is viewable by the Altium Designer Viewer. An aside note, thank you for the link to the local IPC chapter. I had been interested in finding out more information about a local chapter, as I am new to the San Diego area. Another aside note, I am very new to the HAM radio, and I noticed that you posted your call sign. I have just started reviewing the Tech No Code test requirements and am interested in finding out about a local HAM radio chapter if you have any suggestions. Sincerely, Derek Jackson Technical Consultant _____ Altium - Making Electronics Design Easier San Diego Sales & Support -----Original Message----- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 8:54 AM To: Craft,Jim; 'Derek Jackson' Subject: RE: [Retrieved]Altium Designer Viewer download. Good morning Derek (and Jim)... I am surprised that Altium would make a viewer utility that only views files created with the latest version of their software... and not the previous versions... Folks who are users of Protel have been asking for a viewer for their files since way back in version 98... maybe even before that... Now when Protel finally advertises a viewer for their files they STILL have not met the needs of their customers who have so much legacy with them and their products? Not to mention the other folks at the companies that need to have a viewer for the assembly, test, manufacturing folks to be able to see the board design without changing it... Am I misinformed? Is this really what has happened? Our files go back for years... Protel files from 1995 are in our archives and need viewing... are you saying there is no solution? Very confused and disappointed. Bill Brooks - KG6VVP PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I. Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510 Datron World Communications, Inc. _______________________________________ San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council Communications Officer, Web Manager <http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/> http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/ <http://pcbwizards.com> http://pcbwizards.com -----Original Message----- From: Craft,Jim Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 8:37 AM To: 'Derek Jackson' Cc: Brooks,Bill Subject: RE: [Retrieved]Altium Designer Viewer download. Good Morning, We have hundreds of such files. Jim Craft Configuration Manager/Systems Technician Datron World Communications 3030 Enterprise Ct. Vista, California, USA 92081 Tel.: +1-760-597-3773 Fax : +1-760-597-3777 -----Original Message----- From: Derek Jackson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 8:16 AM To: 'Craft,Jim' Subject: RE: [Retrieved]Altium Designer Viewer download. Dear Jim, Unfortunately, the viewer does not have any translation capability. It sounds like you have the old Protel 98/99 format files. How many files do you have that need to be viewed? Sincerely, Derek Jackson Technical Consultant _____ Altium - Making Electronics Design Easier San Diego Sales & Support -----Original Message----- From: Craft,Jim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 12 July 2005 6:22 AM To: 'Derek Jackson' Subject: RE: [Retrieved]Altium Designer Viewer download. Derek, Thanks for your help with the install. I have been able to install the product and activate the license (stand-alone mode).Unfortunately, the product (or its operator :-)), is not opening files, much less viewing them. Any attempt to open a file (I have tried both Protel-authored .sch and .pcb files) using the File...Open command, has no discernable affect. I had hoped that this product could be used to view our existing library of Protel files, but I am so far unable to do so. All of the files which I have attempted to open with DXP open correctly in my Protel Client 99 application. Any suggestions? Jim Craft Configuration Manager/Systems Technician Datron World Communications 3030 Enterprise Ct. Vista, California, USA 92081 Tel.: +1-760-597-3773 Fax : +1-760-597-3777 -----Original Message----- From: Derek Jackson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 5:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Retrieved]Altium Designer Viewer download. Dear Jim, Thank you for contacting Altium Support. The file that you downloaded was only the patch for the SP3 Viewer. To download the Main Viewer Files, visit http://www.altium.com/Forms/designer/viewer.aspx <http://www.altium.com/Forms/designer/viewer.aspx> and fill out requested fields of the form. The next page will allow you to download the main viewer installation. The downloaded viewer in version 2004 with SP4, and there is no need to install the SP4 patch. Sincerely, Derek Jackson Technical Consultant _____ San Diego Sales & Support Altium - Making Electronics Design Easier 17140 Bernardo Center Road, Suite 100 San Diego, CA 92128 Telephone: +1 858 485 4600 Facsimile: +1 858 485 4610 <http://www.altium.com> www.altium.com _____ This email message, including any attached files, is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it has been addressed. Altium prohibits the right to publish, copy, distribute or disclose any information contained in this email, or its attachments, by any party other than the intended recipient. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender and delete it from your system. _____ ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
